Guy Smiley
reveals Guy wears a hair piece.]] Guy Smiley is, by his own account, America's Favorite Game Show Host. He has hosted the ''Sesame Street'' game shows "Beat The Time", "Here is Your Life", "What's My Part?", and many others. He approaches every hosting gig with a near-frantic level of excitement and enthusiasm. __TOC__ Guy Smiley has occasionally demonstrated his musical talent on Sesame Street. His song performances include "Air" and "They Can't Take That Away From Me" (with Cookie Monster). His singing voice at times can go very low, very similar to Link Hogthrob's, as in "I'll Love You in Springtime" and his tribute to the winner in "The Letter of the Day Pageant." He also sang "Gone with the Wind" in the first season. Most of Guy Smiley's appearances in sketches have been as the host of game shows. Many of the sketches where he doesn't host game shows still involve him being the host of a show, including "The Weather Show", "The Letter of the Day Pageant", and "On Vacation with Guy Smiley". One of the few sketches he starred in where he didn't host a show or sing was a sketch where he took his entire studio audience out for lunch. His first appearance was in a sketch where he appears as a spokesman for "Brand X." Although Joan Ganz Cooney once described Guy Smiley as one of Jim Henson's funniest characters,Jim Henson: The Works he was Henson’s least favorite to perform; as the character’s boisterous voice was too rough on his throat.The Story of Jim Henson Because of this, the dialogue for Guy's earlier sketches was commonly prerecorded, so multiple takes could be filmed without straining Henson's throat. A walk-around version of Guy Smiley appeared in a number of Sesame Street Live shows. In Big Bird Goes Hollywood, he assisted Big Bird in directing a movie. Guy Smiley also appeared in Big Bird's Sesame Street Story and Big Bird and the ABCs. In his earliest appearances, he had a visible tongue, a feature that was later seen in 2006, when he hosted a PBS commercial/game show spoof for the ''Ready To Learn'' Service. Following Jim Henson's death, Guy Smiley continued to appear in reused material through 1998. He would then make background appearances in Episode 3820 as one of Maria's customers, and in Episode 4117 as one of the spectators in the Number of the Day segment where The Count was playing golf. Performed by Eric Jacobson since 2005, Guy has made further appearances on the show, beginning with a featured role in the main street story of Episode 4182. Guy also hosted the later game show inserts "The Waiting Game," "Make it Fit," and "Estimation Vacation." Guy's name and early appearances The emcee debuted in the first season, with a different name in each appearance, and often as a show business type. His first appearance was as a spokesman for Brand X, and later that season would show up to sing "Gone with the Wind" and appear as an announcer in at least one Answer Lady sketch (performed by Frank Oz). He made his earliest named appearance in the game show sketch "Can You Guess?", where he went as "Big Bob." In the sketch, "Pick Your Pet," he was called "Sonny Friendly," a name that would be reused years later for another Sesame Street game show host. The first use of the "Guy Smiley" name was "The Mr. and Mrs. Game." When Count von Count introduced himself in a Beat the Time sketch, he did so in his traditional way, "They call me the Count because I love to count things." Guy responded with, "Well, I'm Guy Smiley. They call me Guy Smiley because I changed my name from Bernie Liederkrantz." Casting history Main Performers * Jim Henson - from Sesame Street Season 1 (1969) - Season 21 (1990) * Eric Jacobson - Sesame Street Presents: The Body (2005) - present Alternate Performers * Don Reardon (voice) - Let's Make a Word (1995) and Get Set to Learn (1996) Sketches For game show sketches featuring Guy Smiley, see Sesame Street Game Shows. Notes *The original Guy Smiley puppet was borrowed from a Whatnot design used in various commercials and TV appearances throughout the 1960s (such as Conrad Love). In 1972, the puppet transitioned to the show's standard "Orange Gold" model, with a special mechanism that allowed Guy to raise or lower his eyebrows. This particular puppet often doubled as Prince Charming. Filmography *''Sesame Street'' *''Out to Lunch'' *''The Muppet Movie'' (the "Rainbow Connection" finale) *''The Muppets Take Manhattan'' (wedding finale) *''The Muppets: A Celebration of 30 Years'' *''A Muppet Family Christmas'' *''Ready to Learn'' promo *''Kinect Sesame Street TV'' *''Socktober Telethon'' *Chrysler web videos *''When You Wish Upon a Pickle'' (special and promo: ) *''Sesame Street's 50th Anniversary Celebration'' Episodic appearances *Episode 0915 *Episode 1079 *Episode 3820 *Episode 4182 *Episode 4510 *Episode 4920 Book appearances *''The Sesame Street 1, 2, 3 Storybook'' (1973) *''Grover and the Everything in the Whole Wide World Museum'' (1974) *''The Sesame Street ABC Storybook'' (1974) *''Big Bird's Busy Book'' (1975) *''Bert's Big Band Paint-with-Water Book'' (1976) *''The Monsters' Alphabet'' (1977) * The Sesame Street Mystery Coloring Book (1977) *''The Sesame Street Bedtime Storybook'' (1978) *''The Sesame Street Cookbook'' (1978) *''The Sesame Street Dictionary'' (1980) *''The Sesame Street Circus of Opposites'' (1981) *''What Do You Do?'' (1981) *''Which One Doesn't Belong?'' (1981) *''Big Bird's Alphabet Book'' (1984) *''Can You Tell Me How to Get to Sesame Street?'' (1984) *''Big Bird's Book About the Earth and Sky'' (1985) *''Going Places'' (1988) *''Brought to You by the Letter B'' (2000) * Good for You! (2006) * Who Are the People in Your Neighborhood? (2009) * Let's Make a Friend! (2016) Cookie Monster also disguised himself as Guy Smiley in the book No Cookies 'Til Dinner. Sources __NOWYSIWYG__ Category:Sesame Street Characters Category:Muppet Characters Category:Broadcasting Category:Game Shows